The Cancer Treatment Centers (CTC) of America at Midwestern Regional Medical Center in Zion, IL, believes in the “mother standard of care,” or treating patients as if they are family members or “your own mother,” says Kimberly Bertini, RN, Coordinator for the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® at...
By nature, I am an outgoing person. In fact, I’ve maxed out the sociability and extrovert scale of any leadership proficiency or personality test I have ever taken. I love humor and fun, and I am an energetic individual. When I reflect on how I’ve ended up in the field of patient safety—a...
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released Common Formats Version 1.1, including technical specifications, which will help hospitals further standardize the collection and reporting of data related to patient safety events. Patient safety events include unsafe conditions...
Next time your nursing staff members complain about having too much paperwork and not enough time at the patient’s bedside, you can tell them their feelings are echoed by nurses nationwide, as shown by a recent survey.
As an undergraduate and graduate student, I spent a fair amount of time listening to guest speakers in my healthcare courses. A common theme I found in many talks was the constant need for speakers to “put out fires” in their respective organizations. Although they spoke about strategic planning...
Today’s medical students are not learning enough about patient safety, the importance of teamwork and communication, and safety science, according to a new white paper released in March by the Lucian Leape Institute at the National Patient Safety Foundation. The report, Unmet Needs: Teaching...
Next time you’re brainstorming a way to engage staff in a patient safety–related fair or observance, consider creating a quilt. That’s what staff at Boone (IA) County Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital, did to promote Patient Safety Awareness Week (PSAW), which took place March 7–14,...
Staff members are often trained to report a potential medical error, or near-miss event. However, more often than not, these events go unreported. In 2003, The University of Texas (UT) System, made up of six health institutions, developed a system that allowed the anonymous reporting of close...
